


It's Cool, We Can Still Be Friends

by brielle



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Break Up, Drinking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 15:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brielle/pseuds/brielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry has a broken heart and an unquenchable craving for whiskey. Louis is oblivious and has stars in his eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Cool, We Can Still Be Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Written from the song It's Cool, We Can Still Be Friends by Bright Eyes. I highly suggest you listen to it before reading if you really want to understand where the whole idea came from. (Honestly, this is one of my favorite songs even though it is so depressing because it is just unbelievably powerful and real and the best way to listen to this is to put in your headphones and close your eyes and just blast it okay I'm done now) Please enjoy and comment/leave kudos, much love! xo  
> Disclaimer: This is all fictional!

“Hey it’s Louis, I’m not available right now but leave me a message and I’ll get back to you!”  
  
“Uhm, yeah, hey Lou. I was just calling – uhm, it’s Harry by the way – and I was just calling to see… I mean, if you, I just… I miss you, is all, and I thought, that like -“  
  
‘BEEP’  
  
Harry looked down at his phone screen, illuminating a bright blue light over his dark room, as he was cut off by the machine.  
  
Cut off by the machine, cut off by Louis. Or was it out? Cut off and cut out. Not of his life. But of his heart. Of that special spot where he could hear the heartbeat and feel his soul and touch his veins because he was a part of him.  
  
Fuck, Harry was drunk.  
  
When wasn’t he drunk?  
  
He reached over for his glass, shaking fingers skimming across the cold wood surface of his side table.  
  
Oh. Right. He threw his glass at the wall an hour ago. Smashed it to pieces, little shards. Or was it two hours ago? Three?  
  
Fuck.  
  
What time is it?  
  
Harry settled on taking the entire bottle of whiskey, nursing it like a baby. He couldn’t even feel the burn as it went down his throat. Couldn’t see straight anymore. He could barely grip the bottle, his body shaking so hard, long fingers having lost all feeling.  
  
His eyes burned. He wanted to cry but he couldn’t. He was dry. Empty. Torn apart.  
  
And he still missed him. Blue eyes. He looked into them and swore he saw stars. Like someone had picked them right out of the night sky and placed them perfectly on the cerulean surface.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Harry fell asleep as the sun came up, the light blocked out by his drawn curtains. Or maybe he passed out. It was blissful either way. He didn’t dream of anything, especially not fucking blue eyed boys.

***

The knocking came after the sky had gotten dark. Harry was sitting on his couch, staring at the black TV screen. His fingertips were ghosting over the cushion next to him. He swore he could feel the indents on the pads of his fingers from the other boy who used to sit there so frequently. Used to.  
  
Knock. Knock. Fuck. Knock. Fuck.  
  
Harry dragged himself to the door, all cracking achy bones and shattered pieces of a heart or whatever it is that’s broken inside of him.  
  
Blue eyes.  
  
With shining stars embedded into them, like the milky way.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“Hullo, Harry!” He chirped. His voice. Fuck. Like a melody. God, it used to be his favorite song. Now it scratched and tore at his ears and every other part of him. Bruising, cutting deep.  
  
“Louis,” Harry said back. Or did he whisper it? It was soft. It sounded broken and foreign. Maybe it was just him though, because Louis seemed unfazed.  
  
Fuck, unfazed.  
  
Louis leaned forward to wrap Harry up in his arms. Kiss him on his cheek. It wasn’t like before. He held him like he was fragile now, as if he weren’t already broken but so nearby.  
  
 _Why did you kiss my cheek, Louis? Can’t you see the stains of tears? Don’t you know who caused them? Your lips are cold, Lou. They’re not how they used to be. You’re not how you used to be. Or is it me? I’m not how I used to be._  
  
We’re not how we used to be.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“I thought you’d like to go out for some dinner? What you’re wearing is fine, just grab a jacket, shoes. Reservation’s in 20. Place isn’t too far, got a cabbie out front.” Louis rambled on as Harry struggled to process everything.  
  
Moving through syrup, he picked up a discarded jacket on the floor, throwing it on his hunched shoulders. He slipped on a pair of old beaten converse but had to take them back off – he had put them on the wrong feet.  
  
God, Louis was still talking, he could hear him. Nothing was going through; he couldn’t make out the words. He really needed whiskey, couldn’t he have some whiskey?  
  
Instead, he let himself be towed out of his flat by Louis, like a beaten dog he followed – stumbling the whole time.  
  
The whole dinner he was a statue. Or a broken statue? A pile of rocks, crushed and beaten. Pebbles in a well worn pathway, scuffed and scratched.  
  
He held his hands in his lap, his blank eyes on Louis’ glowing face. His feet crossed, toes curled up until they ached in his shoes. But he didn’t feel it. He didn’t feel anything. Except, maybe, the gaping hole in his chest.  
  
After dinner Harry walked home. It took 45 minutes and he stared straight ahead the whole time, hands jammed into his jean pockets. He didn’t feel the sharp shoulders of people he bumped into, or hear the blaring horns of cars he walked in front of. He saw the eyes though, in his mind. Blue, blue eyes. With stars.  
  
Fuck.  
  
When he got back to his flat, Harry leaned over the toilet bowl and threw up his dinner so that his stomach was as empty as the rest of him.

***

Louis was sitting on the plush velvet armchair in Harry’s flat. Not the couch. He didn’t sit on the couch. Harry sat on the couch. Alone.  
  
Love actually was in the DVD player. God, Harry hated this movie. And he was out of whiskey.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Louis was enthralled which was stupid because he’d seen it a thousand times before.  
  
Harry would know this, since they were all with him.  
  
And Harry’s lap felt cold, empty. There was no weight and no dusting of caramel hair there for Harry to pet and tangle his fingers in. How could anything be there? Louis was sitting on the chair. Not the couch.  
  
Harry fell asleep not even halfway into the movie. Because he hated this movie, and he hated himself, and he loathed blue eyed boys who shined like stars.  
  
Except he didn’t really. Hate him, that is. He didn’t. He couldn’t. Because he didn’t feel anything anymore.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Louis must’ve let himself out at some point because he wasn’t there when Harry woke up. Which he was very grateful for. 

***

Harry got the call deep into the night, when the main streets turn into side streets and every just quiets down to a soft buzz.  
  
‘The most beautiful boyfriend’ flashed across his screen because he could never bring himself to change it. He stared at the words for so long that he nearly missed the call. Except he didn’t.  
  
“Hullo?”  
  
“Harry, hi. I’m just, I really – I really need someone.” Louis’ voice whimpered through the speaker, and he could hear sniffling. “Can you come over?”  
  
Fuck.  
  
 _Why not anyone else? Why me?_  
  
Fuck.  
  
“I’ll be there soon.”

***

Harry sat on the edge of Louis’ bed where the boy lay sobbing into his already damp pillow. He watched like a robot, listening to the uneven gasps of breath and wishing he had brought a little flask of whiskey.  
  
When Louis looked up his eyes were dull, stars having faded away. Harry almost smiled at that.  
  
“Thanks, I just couldn’t be alone right now. Really, though, thanks for coming mate.”  
  
Mate.  
  
Fucking mate.  
  
Fuck.  
  
Mate.  
  
Something had snapped, another broken string inside of Harry.  
  
“Why didn’t you call someone else,” Harry asked through clenched teeth. His jaw ached and he could feel his fingernails digging into the soft flesh of his palm.  
  
“Wha-what?” Louis stuttered, confused and taken aback.  
  
“Why? Why do you – do you still come over? And take me to dinner? Why do you bring movies and call in the middle of the night and why are you _happy_?!” Harry was screaming now and his throat felt raw and scratchy.  
  
He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t – he wasn’t really feeing – he wasn’t angry.  
  
Fuck.  
  
“I don’t understand Harry, why are-?”  
  
“We broke up, Louis! You dumped me, left me, and kicked me to the floor! God, _you broke me_!”  
  
“ _You_ hurt _me_!” Louis cried back, standing up and staring at Harry with disbelieving eyes.  
  
Harry wanted to rip his own hair out, and break every one of his limbs so that he truly could be visibly ripped and torn apart for Louis to see with his own two fucking blue eyes.  
  
“Yeah, well maybe I hurt you! I’m sorry! But let’s compare!” He reached over and grabbed Louis by the biceps, gripping tightly, “where’s your wound? Lift up your shirt, show me!”  
  
Louis gaped at Harry, falling silent and still.  
  
“I see right through you, Louis Tomlinson! You and your lies and bullshit act, you don’t fool me darling! But I’m done! I’m done with you Louis!”  
  
Harry unclenched his white knuckles, letting go of Louis. He stalked out of the flat, leaving the boy with the blue starless eyes behind.  
  
He only looked back once.  
  
Fuck.  
  
When he got back to his flat he took out an unopened bottle of whiskey and drank it all. He could almost feel the burn of the liquid as it slid down his raw throat.  
  
He passed out not much later, shoes still on and an empty bottle loosely gripped in his hand.  
  
And, fuck.

***

“Uhm, hi, you’ve reached Harry. I’m not here but just leave me a message and I’ll talk to you soon. Uhm, alright.”  
  
“Hi, Harry. It’s – uh, well, it’s Louis.”


End file.
